An Unexpected Career Choice

My daughter has turned interior decorator, and apparently my choice of home furnishings is inadequate to satisfy her tastes. It is now essential that almost everything in the house be covered in crayon scrawls, no matter if it be table, wall, chair, floor, or mum.

I suppose I must take a portion of the blame; I leave crayons out and I do encourage their use - although I've lost count of how many times I've said "Only on the paper, honey."

The first ponytail

Ellie doesn't usually stay still for very long - and certainly not long enough to do anything with her hair. But today, apparently wanting to imitate me, she wanted a ponytail and kept her head still for long enough for me to do this!

At some point Aidan has told her that ponies are just little horses, so now she's wandering around the house pulling at her ponytail saying "Neigh!" However, that hairtie has stayed in there for a remarkably long time - about ten minutes so far - so I think we're on a winner with ponytails.

Early mornings

YAAAWWWWNNNN. For a couple of weeks now Elspeth has been waking up at 8am or even later. It's been glorious. But yesterday and today have been early mornings and it sucks. She woke at 6.30 today. That ain't cool. Need more sleep! I might send Ellie off to my parents' place for a few days sometime soon; everybody seems to like that. In the meantime, I have assignments to finish... somehow...

Self-feeding

Elspeth is becoming adept at feeding herself with a spoon. She's getting her mouth more often, and spilling less. She still occasionally tries to speak with a mouthful, and wonders why food falls out.

Ellie's Art - 7th Jan 2011

This is on the fridge now!

A Cold When It's Hot

Despite the 31 degrees of yesterday and the expected top of 34 today, Elspeth has developed the sniffles this morning. She seems quite happy, not at all upset about it, just a yucky snotty nose. She is perhaps a little tired, too.

Do you see that little bit of hair sticking out at the front? That's where I had to wipe snot out of her hair. And the less said about the beanbag, the better. Suffice to say, she throws herself face-forwards onto it all the time, and when there are boogers involved, it isn't pretty!

I Remember Sleep

I just wish Elspeth did! The last two nights have been something like awful. Don't get me wrong, once she's properly asleep, she stays that way. But last night it was nearly 10pm before she consented to slumber, and the night before... well, heaven only knows what happened there. She went to sleep as usual at 8pm, but awoke suddenly screaming at 9. She refused to be comforted or even held, and was arching her back (but controlled, not convulsing) and wriggling like crazy. We think she must have had a nightmare, and presently she just calmed down and went back to sleep nicely.

Today I was hoping she would agree to nap quite early, as we're going out this afternoon. But no. She's apparently not tired. So she probably won't get a nap at all today, unless she sleeps for 20 minutes or so in the pram as she occasionally does.

I never thought I'd be so focused on another person's sleep patterns and habits. But then I had a baby.

Christmas

Aidan and I don't celebrate Christmas. However, our parents do, and our daughter is too young to choose. So whilst the parental units agreed to keep it low key (just a barbeque in our backyard), they did lavish us all, and especially Elspeth, with unsolicited presents. This car and the sandpit in the background, for instance. Very nice, and she loves them, but next year we're cracking down on the No-Christmas rule!

Notwithstanding, we did have a lovely day, and it was great to have all the family together for once. I was only slightly frazzled, being unused to hosting more than one guest, and parental gifts of food were a much welcomed addition to the table!

A few days worth of catching up

I shall begin on Thursday.

Thursday afternoon, my wonderful parents came and took Elspeth away! This meant that Aidan and I were free to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary on our own. Lovely! This picture was taken by my dad, apparently Ellie was playing hide and seek in their wardrobe.

Aidan and I were free agents then until Sunday afternoon, when we took my parents a bag of lemons as ransom for our daughter.

Since then, I must say, she has been a huge pain the butt. She's been grizzly and upset, whinging about nothing or the smallest things. I'm sure it is, in part, our fault - we haven't exactly let her settle back down into a routine!

On Monday I started university. I'm studying online, at home, so it shouldn't have directly affected Elspeth, but quite possibly I paid her less attention than she is used to.

On Tuesday we had Andrew over for dinner, which was tremendously fun as usual, but it did mean we had Ellie up later than usual!

On Wednesday was my grandfather's funeral, so we had to take her on a long drive to the tedious event, followed by a long drive home again.

Today, Thursday, we had Mother's Group - shambles of a disorganised event that it was this week - so again her routine was interrupted!

I sincerely hope that tomorrow and the next few days will be boring and predicable, and that she will settle down again.

She is already seeming slightly better, she is amusing herself relatively quietly while Aidan sleeps prior to night shift.

Tonight's Giggly Madness

With our dinner tonight, Aidan and I had a salad. A big salad in a bowl that we could both pick at. So, I sat at one end of the couch, Aidan sat at the other, and the salad bowl was next to me.

Elspeth climbed up on the couch and started poking around in the salad bowl. Naturally I encouraged this, thinking she was showing signs of wanting to eat healthily.

But did she eat it? No.

She took bits out, one by one, and put them into Aidan's mouth. Feeding him. After each piece went into his mouth, she would be back at the bowl for another, and trying to feed him again before he'd even chewed the last piece! It was like a salad relay race! On the one occasion Aidan simply couldn't get another piece of vegetable into his mouth and utterly refused, Elspeth simply brought it back and fed it to me instead!

Much hilarity ensued. :)